Leadership Nudge™ – Make It Easy For People To Share
One of the things that is most important for leaders to do is help uncover what the team knows. A leader makes it easy for people to share what they know. One of the great tools to make it easy are these probability cards. The key is don’t ask questions like;
“Are we sure?”
“Should we do this, yes or no?”
Instead, pass out Probability cards and ask questions like;
“How sure are you?”
Or “What’s your enthusiasm for this project?”
Or “What’s the probability that this assumption will come true?”
Have everyone around the table play one of their cards. You are going to get a range of responses, which is great. The probability cards have these seven numbers; 1, 5, 20, 50, 80, 95, and 99. There is no zero and no 100. There is also a question mark card. We use this card when someone needs more information before they can commit.
So here’s how it works. Invite the team to each select an appropriate card. You can play them face down or face up. If it’s a high trust team you can play them face up. After the cards are played, the leaders should scan the table and look for the high and the low response. The reason we do this is to give voice to the high perspective and give voice to the low perspective. We call it embracing the outlier. Only after that can you make the best decision. That can happen because you have uncovered what everybody thinks.
Our Leadership Nudge to you this week is this:
Replace “Are you sure?” with “How sure are you?”
Let us know what how it goes!
Click here to find the Probability Cards we use.
Enroll for the Leadership Nudge™ – www.davidmarquet.com
Click here to read my Forbes article on mentoring programs and why you don’t want to have one.
